Thieves continued to wreak havoc over the weekend for people who left valuable items inside vehicles which they’d parked while they went to bed, attended events, run errands, or merely turned their backs for a few minutes.
In several cases, the bandits stripped the vehicles of their tyres, while in others, they smashed windows to get into the vehicles and removed expensive electronic devices, cash and other items.
Three of the victims were women who parked their vehicles in the city to attend Redeye fete Saturday night. In one case, the victim told the cops she returned around 4:00 a.m. on Sunday and discovered two of her four 15” tyres had been removed from her black Toyota Vitz, A53463. She had parked the vehicle on Old Parham Road near the government printery.
A second female made a similar report to the police when she found her vehicle, in the wee hours of Sunday, with two tyres removed. She had parked the rented Toyota Vitz, R4070, on Cross Street, Saturday night, to attend the function when the thieves made off with the two 15” wheels.
The third female, who parked her partner’s vehicle, a silver Toyota Corolla A35881, on Long Street, found herself in a sad situation with no ride home after leaving Redeye fete around 3:15 a.m yesterday. She reported that on her return from the fete, her four 15-inch wheels, valued $1,600, were missing and the vehicle was propped up on two stones.
The owner of A999, who forgot to lock the driver-side door of her Honda CRV when she parked it outside her Redcliffe Street home on Sunday, reported her battery was stolen between morning and mid-afternoon. The battery was worth just over $300.00.
In another incident which occurred over in Liberta, the victim parked her Suzuki Ignis, A52361, inside her yard and some time between 3:30 p.m. and 6:15 p.m., someone entered the yard and broke into the vehicle. The offender shattered the rear left window. Nothing was reported missing, though the vehicle was ransacked.
Another victim of malicious damage to a vehicle in Liberta complained that his Mitsubishi car, A11278, was broken into between Friday night and Saturday morning. Nothing was stolen, but the rear left door was damaged. In the nearby village of Tyrells, a window on A5757 was broken, but the perpetrator ran away without taking anything because the alarm went off. The owner of A25021 was also a victim whose car was damaged by someone who was trying to get inside it over the weekend. Nothing was stolen from the vehicle, but it was ransacked like the others.
Two similar reports of malicious damage came from Swetes on Saturday, where the windows of a Mitsubshi Lancer and a Toyota Vitz had been smashed, but nothing was taken from the ransacked vehicles.
At the same time, a taxi driver who parked his vehicle, TX 954, outside his house early yesterday morning, was also an unfortunate victim of malicious damage and larceny. He was inside the house in the city when he heard a thief smash the vehicle window some time after 3 a.m. He rushed outside to investigate, but the swift thief was already gone with his black wallet, which contained an undisclosed sum of money.
A beachgoer who parked his vehicle at Lashings returned to find his LG $1,200 cellular phone and $500 in cash missing from inside the Mazda, Saturday morning. The thief broke a window to get into the vehicle. Another beachgoer who parked his vehicle at Jabberwock returned and found a window was damaged and his car battery and cellular phone were gone.
Meanwhile, two MacBook laptops valued $12,000, two microphones valued $1,200, a speaker and two pairs of headphones were stolen from a brown Honda Stepwagon, C16537, after the owner parked the vehicle on Temple Street Sunday night and left the items inside.